A Washington State Patrol trooper has earned Portland’s Police Medal for helping an officer apprehend a man who had attacked her on a Portland street in March.
Gordon Gruendell, a commercial vehicle enforcement officer in Vancouver, and civilian James Daw helped detain a man who had been attacking Portland Police Officer Allison Lance.
On March 16, Lance was attacked after checking on a man walking along a street in Northeast Portland. The man ran at her, and then repeatedly punched her in the face, according to a press release announcing the award. The honor recognizes “exceptional courage beyond that of normal service.”
Daw arrived first, stopping to help after witnessing the attack while driving. He helped pull the man off of Lance, who had unsuccessfully used a taser weapon. Gruendell was driving north on Martin Luther King Boulevard when traffic slowed to a near stop. He pulled up next to Lance’s police car and saw her attacker . He was “yelling and obviously … not appreciative of the situation,” he said by phone Friday. “I saw the officer standing right behind him, her face is bleeding.”
